Table of contents

LANDSCAPE

 

II. FARMED LANDS

Land types, quality and crops

Ploughing the land

• First ploughing

• • On common land
  • On private property

Sizes of the plots

• Land consolidation

Situation and separation between fields

Stone walls

• Predominantly open fields

 

CROPS

III. CROP DISTRIBUTION AND ROTATION. FARMING YEAR

General points

• Growth periods and days

• Influence of the moon

Farming year

• Álava Mediterranean watershed

• Navarra Mediterranean watershed

• Atlantic watershed

• Cycle of each crop

Seeds

• Seed selection

• Obtaining and preserving seeds

• Preparing seeds for sowing

• Preparing seedbeds or sowings

 

IV. PREPARING THE CULTIVATED LAND

First ploughing of a piece of land

• Ploughing scrubland or woodland

• Ploughing pastureland

• Modern techniques

Arable land

• Preparing the fallow land

• Preparing the cultivated land

• • The Mediterranean side of the watershed
  • The Atlantic side of the watershed

Fertilising

• Manure

• • Mediterranean watershed
  • Atlantic watershed

• Mineral and synthetic fertilisers

• • Mediterranean watershed
  • Atlantic watershed

• Compost and organic fertilisers

Liming

• Lime production

• Agricultural use of lime

 

V. SOWING AND CARING FOR THE CROPS

Crops for human consumption

• Cereals

• • Wheat

• • • Mediterranean watershed
    • Atlantic watershed

• • Corn

• Pulses and beans

• • Beans
  • Broad beans
  • Peas
  • Chickpeas, lentils and aizkol

• Underground vegetables

• • Roots: carrot, parsley and beetroot
  • Stems

• • • Potatoes
    • Asparagus

• • Leaves

• • • Leek
    • Onions
    • Garlic

• Above ground vegetables

• • Leaves

• • • Lettuce
    • Cabbages
    • Chard
    • Endive, chicory, spinach, celery, cardoon and borage
    • Parsley

• • Flowers: cauliflowers and artichokes
  • Fruit

• • • Peppers and chilli
    • Tomatoes
    • Cucumbers, pumpkins and courgettes
    • Melons and watermelons
    • Aubergines

• Medicinal plants

• Drugs

• • Tobacco

• • • Growing tobacco in Gipuzkoa
    • The seedbeds
    • The growers
    • Growing tobacco in Navarra

• • Marihuana

Crops for livestock

• Cereals

• • Oats
  • Barley
  • Rye
  • Corn

• Legumes

• Small fruit

• Forage vegetables

• • Turnips
  • Beetroot
  • Pumpkins
  • Carrots

Industrial crops

• Sugar beet

Other crops

• Mushrooms

Caring for the crops

Weeding

• • Cereals
  • Pulses and beans
  • Potatoes
  • Vegetables

 

VI. CROP HARVESTING AND PRESERVATION

Harvesting crops for human consumption

• Evolution of reaping and threshing cereals

• • Álava Mediterranean watershed: reaping, hauling, threshing, tossing, storing grain and straw; harvesting today and baling
  • Navarra Mediterranean watershed: reaping, hauling, threshing, tossing, storing grain and straw; harvesting today and baling
  • Atlantic watershed: reaping, threshing, tossing; storage
  • Harvesting cereal today

Pulses and beans

• • Beans and pods
  • Broad beans, baba
  • Peas
  • Chickpeas and lentils

Underground vegetables

• • Potatoes
  • Asparagus
  • Leeks; onions and garlic

• Above ground vegetables

Crops for livestock

• Cereals

Forage vegetables

• • Turnips
  • Beetroot
  • Pumpkins
  • Potatoes

Flour mills

Introduction

• Mill types

Mills in the surveyed populations

• • Álava
  • Bizkaia
  • Gipuzkoa
  • Navarra

• Decline of the mills

Milling

• Milling year

 

VII. GRASS AND OTHER FORAGE

Grass in the traditional culture

• Meadow creation and upkeep

• • Enclosing, ploughing and cultivation
  • Upkeep

• Use

• • Grazing
  • Green reaping
  • Hay making

• • • Reaping
    • Drying
    • Collecting and transporting
    • Storage
    • Consumption
    • Haystacks

Changes in the 1960s

• Silage

Mechanical harvesting

• The first tractors

Progressive mechanisation

Changes in livestock farming associated with mechanisation

• Increased grass production

Latest modifications to cattle feeding

• Changes linked to the livestock crisis

 

VIII. GROWING FLAX AND HEMP

Production process

Pulling up and softening

• Threshing flax seeds

Treating the strands

• Breaking

Heckling

• Distaff

• Teasing

Spinning

Spinning wheel

• Spindle

 

FRUIT TREES. OLIVES AND VINES

 

X. GROWING OLIVES AND VINES

The olive

• Olive-growing areas

• Planting

Care

• • Pruning

• • • Time of year
    • Tools

• • Ways of pruning
  • Use of the pruned olive-tree branches
  • Tilling and digging

• • • Time of year
    • Horse-driven and manual work
    • Mechanised work

• • Fertilising and irrigation

• • • Time of year for fertilising
    • Types of fertilisers
    • Ways of fertilising
    • Irrigation

• • Pests and treatments

• • • Winter
    • Spring
    • Summer

Vines

Traditional vine growing on the Mediterranean watershed

• • Varieties
  • Tilling
  • Planting
  • Pruning
  • Grafting
  • Primary-shoot thinning
  • Fertilising
  • Secondary-shoot thinning
  • Fruit set
  • Pests
  • Other tasks

• Vine growing today on the Mediterranean watershed

• • Preparing the land
  • Soil analysis
  • Pulling up the old vines and replanting
  • Vine varieties
  • Planting tasks
  • Planting procedures followed
  • Caring for the plants

• • • Grafting
    • Pruning
    • Fertilising and irrigation
    • Tilling and digging
    • Use of herbicides
    • Treatments
    • Pests

Vine growing on the Atlantic watershed. Txakolina

• • Traditional vine growing
  • Trained vines
  • Tasks to care for the vines

 

XI. PRODUCTION OF OIL, WINE, TXAKOLI AND CIDER

Oil

• Harvesting the olives

• • Time of year
  • Method

Cleaning the olives

• Making olive oil

• • Time of year
  • Delivering and weighing the olives. Their storage
  • Crushing
  • The hopper
  • The auger
  • The crusher
  • The beaters
  • The tank
  • The press
  • The stoning room
  • The oil vats
  • The waste holding tanks
  • Distribution of the oil
  • Other applications: soap and a medicated paste made of wax and oil

Refurbishment of the La Equidad olive oil press, Moreda (A)

• Classification of the olive oil presses

• • Manual olive oil presses
  • Hydraulic olive oil presses
  • Olive oil presses with petrol engine
  • Electric olive oil presses

Wine

• Traditional grape harvest on the Mediterranean watershed

• • Wine making

• • • Traditional wine-making at home
    • New procedures
    • Wine making in cave-winery

• • Changes to the wines

• • Garapitero or wine duty collector

• The grape harvest today on the Mediterranean watershed

• • Wine making in industrial wineries
  • Types of reds

• • • Whole grape or carbonic maceration system
    • Bordeaux system. Sorting, destemming and crushing method

Cider

Cider making

• • Pre-treatment
  • Crushing
  • Maceration
  • Pressing
  • Fermentation and storage
  • Bottling

Changes to the cider

• • Acidity
  • Cloudiness
  • Forming of mould
  • Decolouring or blackening
  • Other changes to the cider

 

FARM TOOLS AND IMPLEMENTS

XII. TRADITIONAL FARMING EQUIPMENT

Implements for working the land

• Spades

• Hoes and their types

• • Hay hooks
  • Hand hoes. Rake
  • Large hoe

Pull-type implements to work the land

• The plough

• The plough in the Northern Basque Country

• • Nabarra
  • Goldea
  • Goldenabarra
  • Adareta
  • Urdamuturra
  • Golde itzulkorra
  • Swivel plough

• The plough in the Southern Basque Country (lying within Spain)

• • Gipuzkoa and Bizkaia

• • • Nabarra or knife to cut the ground
    • Exa
    • Golde txikia. Golde nagusia or swivel plough

• • Álava and Navarra

Implements to break up and smooth the soil

• Rakes. Zaranda

Aerator, are handia

• Arralda. Hesia. Trapa. Narria. Digging implements

• Alperra, roller

Implements to make furrows

• Cultivator

• Markoa, marker

Spike ploughs

• Itailak

Tragaz

• Plané

• Makatza

• Disk plough

Reaping instruments

Sickle

• • Names
  • Zoqueta hand protector

Scythe

• • Names

• Instruments to sharpen scythes and sickles

• Sharpening stone

• Instruments to sharpen different implements

Instruments to collect crops and grass

• Pitchfork

Iron pitchfork

• Metal pitchfork with curved spikes

• Sacking

• Small rake. Rake

Manual baler

• Hook

Clearing instruments

Sickle

• Belagoia

Instruments to thresh wheat and corn

Wheat threshing stones

• Threshers

Instruments for winnowing wheat

• Threshing board

• Winnowing blade

• Sieve, sifter

• Winnowing fork machine

Instruments to cut wood

• Axe

• • Double-bladed axe
  • Sharpening
  • Wedge

Saw, zerra Handsaw

• • Mitre saw
  • Felling trees using a mitre saw
  • Arpana. Saw for timber
  • Sawhorse

Utensils for looking after the vines

Sickle. Gardening machete

• Hook. Billhook

Transport tools

• Transporting on shoulders

• • Antzadila. Very flexible green branches.
  • Kakola
  • Sheets. Maniriak

Transport instruments

• • Baskets: saskia, zarea, zarana. Carpancho, cunacho large baskets. Hampers and esparto grass baskets. Otarria, otzarea
  • Hand biers
  • Handcart

 

XIII. MEASUREMENTS UNITS

Length measurements

• Length measurement instruments

 

WORKFORCE

XIV. WORKFORCE AND ANIMAL POWER USED IN AGRICULTURE

Human power

More typical work of the men

• Women's involvement

• Tasks of the elderly

• Paid help

• Children's work

Contracting temporary workers

• Taking on day labourers in the public square

• Casual workers

• Transitions

Work garments

• Men's clothing

• Women's clothing

• Footwear

Animal power

• Cattle

• Horses

• Donkeys and Asses

• Nowadays

 

XV. ANIMAL TRANSPORT. THE CART, GURDIA

The cart. The hay wagon

• Northern Basque Country: Sara, Donoztiri, Uhartehiri, Garazi, Liginaga

• Navarra: Bera, Urdiain, Améscoa, Aoiz, Valle de Arce y Oroz-Betelu, Viana, San Martín de Unx, Obanos, Muez y Ugar, Valle de Roncal, Valtierra, Cárcar

• Álava: Valderejo, Bernedo, Moreda, Abezia, Apodaka, Treviño y La Puebla de Arganzón, Berganzo, Pipaón y Ribera Alta, Argandoña

• Gipuzkoa: Berastegi, Beasain, Hondarribia, Elgoibar, Telleriarte, Zerain

• Bizkaia: Gautegiz Arteaga, Abadiño, Amorebieta-Etxano, Bedarona, Urduliz, Valle de Carranza

The dray, lera

• Northern Basque Country

• Navarra

• Álava

• Gipuzkoa

• Bizkaia

The yoke

• Way of yoking the oxen

• Complements of the yoke

• • Tethering
  • Hood
  • Borders
  • Cart rope

• Horse yokes

• Horse and ass harnesses and implements

• • Pack saddle, saddlecloth and blanket
  • Headgear and blinkers
  • Draft collar. Leather draft collar
  • Draw reins

• Transport implements

• • Hooks
  • Biers
  • Saddlebags. Astotzarak
  • Other items

 

XVI. THE MECHANISATION OF AGRICULTURE

Mechanisation in a locality of Álava

• The plough and its evolution

• Industrialisation of the farm implements

• The appearance of the tractor

Implements used during the farming year

• Preparing the land

• Sowing

• Care of the crops

• Harvesting

Mechanisation today

• Mediterranean watershed

• Atlantic watershed

 

AGRICULTURAL TRADE AND LAND OWNERSHIP

XVII. OWN USE AND AGRICULTURAL TRADE

Buying seeds and plants

• Nowadays

Services providers by peddlers

• Butchery services

 

XVIII. OWNERSHIP SYSTEM. COMMUNAL PROPERTY AND PRIVATE PROPERTY

Communal property and its use

• Leasing commons

• Other uses of common upland

Owners who farmed by means of tenants

• Price of the rent and how it was set

• Payment in kind or in cash

• • Terms of payment
  • Payment times

Overlapping of communal and private property

• Time of ruin

• Privately-owned trees on common land

 

BELIEFS AND RITES

XIX. PROTECTION CUSTOMS AND RITES IN AGRICULTURE

Protecting seedbeds and plants

• Protecting against pests

• Protecting against wild boars and badgers

• Protecting against rabbits

• Protecting against birds. Scarecrows

Rites and symbolic customs: solstice fires

• Customs around St. John the Baptist's Feast Day

• Old beliefs relating to the fertility of the earth

• Saints' images and magic

• Erecting the maypole

Blessing the fields and seeds

• Blessing and erecting crosses

• Blessed branches

• Rites to bless the fields

• Blessing seeds

Bell-ringing and spells against storms. Moving the saint's images

• Bell-ringing

• Pebbles collected at Easter

• Incantations from the church or chapel

• Praying to Saint Barbara

• Saints' images

Prayers

• St. Mark litanies

• Ascension prayers

• Occasional prayers

• Prayers at shrines

• Moving images in processions

Saints protecting crops

• St. Gregory of Ostia

• St. Isidore the Labourer

• St. Faustus the Labourer